Plays

The tyrant Kiyohara no Takehira has seized power and is about to execute a group of innocents who refuse to bow to him.

A traveling peddler appears at a gathering in Ōiso, selling uirō, a famous cure-all medicine from Odawara.

The holy priest Narukami, wronged by the imperial court, has sealed the rain-bringing dragon god beneath a waterfall, plunging the land into drought.

The dashing swordsmen Fuwa Banzaemon and Nagoya Sanza are rivals in love, vying for the favor of the same courtesan.

In Fudō, the deity Fudō Myōō—object of the Ichikawa Sōke's devotion at Naritasan Shinshōji temple—manifests directly upon the stage.

The single character of the title—two women flanking one man—announces the theme: a first wife's ritual raid on her successor, the old custom called uwanari-uchi.

A hero and a villain seize a great elephant from either side and pull—a play named for its own feat of strength.

At New Year's, Soga Gorō sits whetting a giant arrowhead, readying himself for the day he will strike down Kudō Suketsune, his father's enemy.

Guan Yu, the great hero of the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, strides onto the kabuki stage—a rare aragoto piece built around a foreign hero.

After the fall of the Heike, the fearsome warrior Akushichibyōe Kagekiyo lies captive in a prison of the victorious Genji.

An actor draws mask after mask from a box, transforming his performance with each one—a play built on the delight of metamorphosis.

At the mansion of Ono no Harumichi, the young lady Nishiki-no-mae suffers a bizarre affliction—her hair stands on end—and her wedding has been postponed.

The title means release from worldly attachment. Its subject is the lingering resentment of the warrior Kagekiyo, unquiet even in death.

A tale of the uncanny, said to draw on the legend of the "snake willow" of Mt. Kōya—a story of jealousy and lingering resentment.

Under the pretense of shaving a hero's beard with a sickle, an enemy tries to slit his throat—and the blade will not cut. An aragoto play about invulnerable strength.

Kan Shōjō—the statesman and scholar remembered today as the god of learning, Sugawara no Michizane—is slandered by his rival Fujiwara no Shihei and banished to distant Kyūshū.

After the sea battle at Dan-no-ura, Minamoto no Yoshitsune falls under his brother Yoritomo's suspicion and flees the capital.

Humiliated by Kō no Moronao, Lord Enya Hangan draws his sword inside the palace. He is ordered to commit seppuku, and his house is dissolved.